The use of credit cards, debit cards, and similar payment instruments has been the universally preferred means for most consumer purchases of goods and even services. Current constructs for effecting consumer purchases across a financial institution credit network are limited to use of a single payment instrument in connection with a purchase. Currently, a consumer must have in the consumer's possession a plastic payment instrument, such as a credit card or debit card having a magnetic strip, or being contactless in nature. At the point-of-sale, a credit card reader, or terminal, or similar point-of-sale payment device is provided that requires the consumer to successfully swipe the payment instrument through the point-of-sale device. Over time, from repetitive use, the magnetic strip on the payment instrument degrades, and data embedded in the magnetic strip may become unreadable for a variety of causes by a point-of-sale device. Degradation of the magnetic strip may cause payment rejection although the consumer may be the authentic owner of the payment instrument. Authentication or verification of the customer is limited to data and information embedded in the magnetic strip of the payment instrument: whoever possesses the payment instrument can affect purchases. The use of personal identification numbers solves the problems neither of customer identification nor customer verification. Customer authentication fails to overcome problems of lost or stolen payment instruments, degraded instruments, or loss of functionality between the payment instrument and point-of-sale payment devices.
There is a worldwide need, therefore, for a secure point-of-sale payment system that allows a consumer, or customer, to selectively direct payments from at least one payment instrument, as well as from more than one payment instrument, without the need to have in the customer's possession a plastic rendition of the payment instrument. There exists also a need for such a system to reduce problems arising from loss of payment instruments, fraud, and rejected payments, while allowing a customer to make payments from a variety of payment instruments based on logical criteria such as varying interest rates, amounts previously charged to the payment instrument, locale in which the payment is made (for example, a customer may have U.S. payment instruments for transaction in the United States, but a Spanish payment instrument, for example, for frequent trips to Spain).
A worldwide demand also exists for a system that permits a customer to selectively direct payments from one or more payment instruments by use of a portable, or mobile, wireless communication instrument commonly in possession of customers worldwide. At least one example of such a portable, or mobile, wireless communications instrument is a cellular telephone, but any wireless communications instrument to which a computer and/or data processing system may be operatively connected may be used other than a cellular telephone.
In addition, due in part to increasing mobility of people worldwide, and extensive national and international travel for business and/or pleasure, a need exists for a mobile wireless financial device capable of collecting, storing, receiving, and transmitting a wide range of customer financial data, personal information, and business information that may be revised, updated, and provided across a wireless communications system.
Currently, the well-known credit/debit card-based credit system is anything but paperless. Despite advent of the customer-not-present (“CNP”) electronic telephone authorizations, the vast majority of customers conduct financial transactions across a credit network by using a single credit or debit card, signing a receipt or similar paper confirmation of the transaction, or perhaps conduct the transaction via a touch screen, indicating the amount of payment that may be charged against only a single payment instrument. Paper confirmations of the transactions must be collected and collated. The apparatus, system, and methods disclosed, illustrated, and claimed in this document obviate paper receipts, and offer the prospect of instant payment transactions across a credit network.